Post Content

Mary Worth, 10/17/18

Oh my god, it’s even better than I could’ve hoped: Mary is going to force emotional progress on Mr. Wynter by driving him to the pet shelter and browbeating him into adopting a pet while he begs her to stop! This is of course a terrible way to deal with a man’s sadness over a lost dog, simultaneously rushing the grieving process and belittling the specific bond he felt with his unique beloved pup. Honestly, though, my take is: why stop here? Why not just take things to their logical conclusion? Remember Saul’s devastation over the the loss of the love of his life? Why doesn’t Mary just drag him down to some adult education class that skews female — quilting? — and say “Maybe we can also cheer up a lonely widow or divorceé and make their day!” Saul will cling desperately to the side of the car, but with her persistence and surprising upper body strength, Mary will ensure that Saul loves again, whether he wants to or not.

Mark Trail, 10/17/18

A lot of people have been begging in the comments for me to check in on the Mark Trail storyline, which they’ve claimed is “exciting,” which, are you kidding me, it’s consisted entirely of Rusty and Mara having a weird, awkward conversation with “Backpack Guy” about which parts of this small Mexican town aren’t safe for two American tourist kids, one of whom is an obvious moron. However, I do of course need to present today’s strip to you, since it features the triumphant return of Extremely Cool Motorcycle Dude, who definitely seems to be from a different faction from Backpack Guy. Which of these two artifact-stealing-adjacent groups has Rusty and Mara’s best interests at heart? Is it neither of them? Can it please be neither of them? That’d be great.

Dick Tracy, 10/17/18

This Dick Tracy storyline has been remarkably short and low on character motivation — just a couple weeks after we’ve been introduced to Pauly and suddenly he’s a guy who’s always wanted to kill Dick Tracy, blah blah blah, now he and Dick are firing pistols at each other at close range and making no attempt to dive for cover or anything, etc., etc. Mostly I want to point out that Pauly looks like you put Dick and Sam together in the transporter pod from The Fly and turned the Color Palette knob all the way to “brown.”

Family Circus, 10/17/18

Today’s Family Circus features the Keane Kids staring at their parents’ increasingly passionate embrace, commenting upon, but not quite comprehending, the difference between the erotic bonds between the two adults and the filial bonds between parents and children. It’s the best panel they’ve presented us with in years!

Post Content

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/15/18

Oh, snap, did our man Jordan steal some valor? We learned yesterday that he lost his legs to an IED in Iraq not while “on patrol,” since he wasn’t in a combat unit, but rather while he was walking to a market to buy vegetables, because he was an Army Food Services Specialist. You’d think most people would be perfectly willing to honor anyone wounded by enemy action in a combat zone, and that the soldiers he fed would’ve deemed him a hero for risking his life to help supply them with fresh food and not MREs or industrial flash-frozen meals shipped from the States. But, whatever, Jordan just wants to give people a “good story,” and it makes me suspicious that the truth is even further removed from the “real” tale he’s been telling his fiance. Like, in a month we’re going to find out he wasn’t in the army at all, but actually was just a line chef at a restaurant who had to run to the supermarket to get some more spinach during the late dinner rush, and accidentally slipped and fell into the into the industrial floor buffer. Then a week after that we’ll find out the restaurant was an Olive Garden and he was actually picking up more of the Secret Olive Garden Ingredient (Grade B butter).

Mary Worth, 10/15/18

I don’t want to tell Mary how to do her job (“job”), but if you’re trying to woo an emotionally closed-off shut-in back into the world by giving him a specific task to complete that matches his skills, maybe just spend some time with him doing that task and making neutral chit-chat instead of bombarding him with feelings talk the moment you trick him out of his apartment? This is the speech for when he realizes he’s enjoyed the day in spite of himself, not when he’s still in the car on the way over! He’s not going to come out again for another year.

Six Chix, 10/15/18

One thing I really hate is characters explaining things to each other that they already know, so I’m going to assume that the vampiress on the left has only recently been turned into an undead ghoul by the vampiress on the right. Our newbie has finally gotten over the initial shock and is starting to really lean into the aesthetic, but still hasn’t really that the one thing that’s truly her long hoped for ticket to Instagram stardom is also the one thing that makes selfies physically impossible.

Family Circus, 10/15/18

My favorite part of this cartoon, in which literally everybody is devastated at not being able to go on a trip to New York with Big Daddy Keane (which, why? he isn’t that great) is that Billy is wearing a “Good On Ya Mate” t-shirt he got from his canonically Australian mother. Ha ha, Billy doesn’t know the difference between New York and Australia! The only geography he understands is “here” and “somewhere else.” He’s a moron!

Slylock Fox, 10/15/18

I’m not sure why Slylock felt like he needed so many accomplices for his grim little sting operation here. I do love how pleased Patty looks — maybe she feels like, having gotten a social invitation from Slylock, she’s moving up in the world! — and how tense everyone else looks, as they all wait for this desperate addict to sneak off to the bathroom, open the medicine cabinet, and try to pocket the, uh, “toothpaste,” yeah, that’s exactly what Patty’s been stealing from the town’s medicine cabinets, toothpaste. Only our li’l pig pal is completely ignoring the fraught emotional texture of the evening. He’s just eatin’ dinner! He loves dinner! It’s weird that dinner’s been served in the living room off of a coffee table, but guess what: he doesn’t care!

Spider-Man, 10/15/18

“Look who escaped the chopper via their own personal jetpacks!” “Kingpin and the Golden Claw!” “Yeah man, that was a rhetorical question. They were the only other people in the chopper. It couldn’t have been anyone else. Is this … is this how other people feel when they’re talking to me? Hoo boy.”

Post Content

Mary Worth, 10/11/18

So it looks like Mary’s going to go with the “Tee hee, I need a big strong man to make sure I’m not ripped off by those ruffians down at the auto repair shop” gambit to try to lure Saul out of his Sadness Condo. Charmingly patriarchal as I find Mr. Wynter’s snarled “What happened to your boyfriend?”, we all know what happened to Mary’s boyfriend: (a) this is all a ploy so he’s not even involved, (b) he has an actual job, unlike these two retiree layabouts, and (c) he’s extremely nervous and would probably react to any hard sell from the mechanics by saying “He’s right, Mary! A car without a thorough undercoating is unsafe!”

Crankshaft, 10/11/18

There’s this whole depressing long-simmering storyline that Crankshaft has revisited over the years about how Lilian thwarted her sister Lucy’s love life when they were young out of jealousy, which I can never keep the details straight because I find it tedious, and also I think Lucy died within the last ten years of real-life time or so in some tragic way … was it Alzheimer’s? I’m gonna say Alzheimer’s. Anyway, the fella who was the object of both sisters’ desire in their youth is this behattèd gentl here, who’s come to this class reunion to offer absolution, I guess, and also offer career advise: Lilian should write a book about her tragically dead sister! Sure, she’s written exactly one book, a cozy murder mystery, and cozy murder mysteries are a solidly commercial genre that you can be real successful in if you find your niche, and she landed her agent on the strength of that manuscript, but why not suddenly shift gears and write a memoir? Remember, this is the Funkyverse, where the only valid literary form is the Tragic Memoir About A Loved One Who Died.

Funky Winkerbean, 10/11/18

Speaking of the Funkyverse, Funky had planned to “run through the tape here at Montoni’s,” which I take to mean that he intended to keep working there until he died, presumably of a rage-stroke while he screamed at some tomato sauce supplier over the phone, but now he’s going to abruptly hand the job over to his nephew and peace out. Does he have any retirement savings to fall back on, or has he finally realized that dying in poverty is preferable to smelling burnt pepperoni and sadness every day for the rest of his life?

Crock, 10/11/18

This comic doesn’t make any sense because it’s established Crock canon that Maggot and Grossie live in a tent. I hate that I know this.